So what with the words of the sheriff and this well-meant talk and my own disgust at all these doings, I made up my mind to keep clear of these three men and not permit my curiosity regarding the Lost Cabin Mine to lead me into their company again. But when I went up to my room, before going to bed, I counted my remaining money and found that I had but seven dollars to my name. I thought to myself then that the Lost Cabin Mine would be a mighty convenient thing to find. And in my dreams that night I wandered up hill and down dale seeking for the Lost Cabin and engaging in hand-to-hand conflicts with all three of these men, Canlan, Donoghue, and the Apache Kid. It was on awakening from one of these conflicts that I lay thinking over all that I had heard of that mysterious Cabin and all that I had seen of the three principally connected with it. Revolving these thoughts in my mind, it occurred to me that it was an unaccountable thing, if all three knew the situation of the mine, that the two who were "partners" should not simply start out for it and risk being followed up and shadowed by Canlan. They were always two to one and could take watch and watch by night lest Canlan should follow and attempt to slay them from the bushes; for that, it would appear, was the chief danger in the matter. Canlan’s dread of starting alone I could understand. Then suddenly I sat upright in bed with the sudden belief that the truth of the matter was that Canlan, and Canlan only, knew of the mine’s situation. "But that again can’t be," said I, "for undoubtedly Donoghue meant murder to-night and that would be to kill the goose with the golden eggs." I was no nearer a solution of the mystery but I could not dismiss the matter from my mind. "I believe," said I to myself, "that instead of having nothing to do with this Lost Cabin Mine I will yet find out the truth of it from these men. Who knows but what I, even I, may be the one for whom the mine with all its treasure waits?" *CHAPTER IV* _*I Take My Life in My Hands*_ After breakfast on the day following the incident of the verandah I was journeying down town to post two letters, the Lost Cabin Mine still uppermost in my mind, when I came, at the turning into Baker Street, face to face with the man Donoghue. It was clear that he saw me,—he could not help seeing me, so directly were we meeting,—and I wondered if now he would have a word to say to me regarding the part I played on the preceding evening. Sure enough, he stopped; but there was only friendliness on his face and the heaviness of it and the sulkiness were hardly visible when he smiled. He held out his hand to me with evident sincerity, and said that he had to thank me for preventing what he called "an accident last night."